


Once Upon A Rooftop

by javajunkie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23067112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/javajunkie/pseuds/javajunkie
Summary: Rey and Ben meet at a friend's Halloween party.  Modern AULightly based on the soulmates premise, but less angsty.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	Once Upon A Rooftop

(Artwork by tindu on Tumblr)

Once Upon A Rooftop

This time, they meet at a Halloween party. It’s an overcast Saturday afternoon and one of his friends is having a party on the rooftop of his building. Thanks to global warming, Ben gets away with just a green sweatshirt and jeans. A man dressed as Harry Potter asks him what he’s supposed to be and Ben tells him, “November 1st.”

He cracks open a beer and stands on the side, watching the party more than really taking part in it. People seem to be having fun. There’s laughter. Music. In one corner, a small group shotguns beer while onlookers cheer. He lifts his beer can to his mouth but stops midway. Across the rooftop, he sees her. She’s dressed like some character from pop culture that he recognizes, but cannot place. Much like her. He’s fairly certain he has never laid eyes on her before this moment, yet something about her is familiar. 

His friend Poe joins him, and gives his clothes one look before he asks, “Is this really the best you could do?” 

Ben shrugs and Poe says, “I had to pay to use this rooftop. The least you could do was at throw on a mask.”

“I didn’t have a mask.”

Poe sighs. “Sometimes I wonder how we are friends.”

“Do you know who that is?” Ben asks, gesturing toward the girl. By this point, she has moved over to the shotgun-beer-group. One of them holds a beer out toward her and she shakes her head with a sheepish grin.

“That’s Rey. We work together.”

“I haven’t heard you mention her before,” Ben notes.

“She just started a few weeks ago.” Poe notices his friend’s distracted gaze, and grins wide before he says, “Hold on, are you interested in her?”

“What, no,” Ben says quickly. “I’ve never even met her. How could I be interested in a girl I’ve never met?”

Poe grabs Ben’s beer and takes a quick pull from it. “See, you think that logic is sound but it’s not at all.” He hands the beer back. “Come on, I’m going to introduce you.” 

Poe takes a hold of Ben’s arm and drags him toward the shotgunning group as he jovially calls out, “Rey, I have someone for you to meet!”

She turns around and suddenly Ben is subject to the full force of her smile. It was somewhat akin to staring straight into the sun and he finds it difficult to blink. Poe glances over at him and knocks his elbow into his side. “You should see yourself right now, man.”

His friend’s ribbing breaks the spell and Ben blinks rapidly, arranging his form into something resembling normalcy as Poe introduces him. 

“This is my buddy, Ben Solo.”

“Hi Ben, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Rey.”

She stretches her hand out toward him and for a moment he pauses – who shakes hands at a Halloween party? – but then he takes her hand, calloused skin meeting something softer. A jolt of electricity jumps between them and they both pull away quickly.

“Sorry about that,” he says. “I, uh, guess I should have worn my rubber sole shoes.”

She laughs and says, “It’s okay.”

Poe braces a hand on each of their shoulders and says, “There is a person puking into a potted plant and I’m pretty sure my down payment for this space does not cover that. So, I have to go. You two keep getting acquainted.”

Poe rushes off toward the potted plant and Rey crosses her arms over her chest as she muses, “Isn’t it a bit early for puking into a potted plant?”

“I’d tend to agree with you.”

She grins and then says, “I’m sorry, this is going to seem weird, but have we met before? I just have this feeling, and well, I’m terrible with faces. Honestly, the absolute worst. And I just thought…” she trails off, cheeks flushing. “I sound like a complete lunatic, don’t I?”

Ben shook his head. “Not at all. But I don’t think we’ve met.”

She nods, rocking on her heels a bit, and says, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Ben.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Rey.”

They lose track of each other throughout the party, and when he runs into Poe later that day, Poe asks him if he gave her his number, Ben tells him no, and Poe says, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

“Take care of what?” Ben asks warily, although he is quite aware of what is going to happen. “I don’t need you to take care of anything.”

“I’ll take care of it!” 

Those words are very much on Ben’s mind when he finds her later in the party. She’s taking up two seats – sitting on one with her feet propped up on the other. Her hat is on her lap, face turned up toward the night sky with her eyes closed. 

“Rey?”

She turns her head toward him and smiles with recognition. “Hello Ben.”

Given her current station, he expected her to be drunk, but she wasn’t.

“You staked out a nice spot for yourself here,” he says.

“Always find a place to sit. That is my motto for a party.” She moves her feet for him to sit in the seat opposite her, and he spots her phone plugged into the wall. “I also needed an outlet.”

“Kill two birds with one stone.”

“Exactly,” she intones with a grin. They both grow quiet and she says, “Poe tried to give me your phone number, by the way.”

“He did?”

She nods. “But my phone was dead.”

“I guess it’s a good thing you found an outlet.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” 

They are quiet again, the party milling on behind them, and he looks over at her, his eyes casting over her high cheekbones and pert nose. She looks like someone who should be in a painting somewhere, her features too perfectly cast for an ordinary New York rooftop. He thinks back to their first conversation, her eyes brows knit together as she asked whether they met before.

“You seem familiar, too.” She looks over at him suddenly and he adds, “What you were saying before, about whether we had met -“

“I remember,” she says quickly.

“We haven’t met before. At least I don’t think we have.”

“I told you I’m bad with faces,” she says leadingly. Ben shakes his head with a wane grin and says, “I would remember yours.”

He can see that she is breathing quicker and she tries to cover it by shifting in her seat. She puts her hat back on and he tells her it isn’t straight. When she cannot straighten it herself, he leans forward and does it himself. They are close then, and her eyes dart down to his mouth. She swallows hard and asks, “How do you feel about kissing someone you only just met?”

His eyes search hers and he murmurs, “I think I’m okay with that.”

She leans forward and presses her mouth against his, one hand framing his face as the other rests gently on his thigh. Despite her being a relative stranger, kissing her felt like the most natural thing in the word. After a few moments he pulls away, his forehead pressed lightly against hers. Her phone lights up on the ground. It’s someone calling, and Ben asks, “Do you need to get that?”

“Probably,” she murmurs, but she doesn’t move.

Someone drops a glass near them and they pull apart. The guy swears and looks around before kicking the broken glass to the side and walking away. Rey shakes her head and says, “That is my cue to leave.”

Ben nods. “Good call.”

She stands and turns toward him, hand outstretched. “Are you ready?”

In any other situation, any other night with any other girl, he would have thought such a proposition was insane. But, it _was_ her, and for that reason he doesn’t hesitate and takes her hand.


End file.
